Guild Wars 2

Yalu.6810:

Really now? People are not supposed to use DPS stats at all? The zerker-phobia was bad enough but now it’s extending to other stat combinations?

Look at raiding in other games… in WoW there is literally only 1 way to gear up any given spec. There is a very clear best in slot and a clear stat weighting that people follow.

DPS roles will want DPS stats. It’s that simple. There may be DPS stats that are better for some specs than others, hence we have people using sinister instead of berserker. Why would anyone voluntarily kitten themselves and use stats that provide him with less DPS, if DPS is what they are brought in for?

Support roles might use different stats, and so will tanks. And PvP and WvW call for different stat sets entirely. But if you are looking to completely outlaw berserker stats from PvE I think you will be disappointed, because it’s just not realistic.

Jesus christ… when did I say DPS stats should be banned? That’s not the problem. The problem is that taking defensive stats is bad for your group as a whole. If too many people build too defensively, the group cannot succeed. It’s not a good thing that you can clear the raid in nothing but DPS stated gear, and the more defense you bring the harder the content becomes.

Right now defensive stats are outlawed in raids; they are counter productive.

Enko.6123:

Are you confusing “Zerker gear” with “DPS gear”? The Engineers were in Sinister which is still a DPS build (and higher DPS than Berserker).

Yes, when I say “Zerker” I mean “DPS”. Sorry if that’s confusing.

lordkrall.7241:

4 engis that were not zerker. I also seem to recall from the reddit thread that the Druid was using Clerics. So that basically means half of the group not being zerker.

So, is the OP lying about his comp?

Dommmmmmmmmm.6984:

Everyone was in Berserker, except the Condi Engis of course. I don’t think the Berserker meta is quite over with yet.

The condi engis were still in full dps gear; it’d be more apt to say “DPS meta”, because defensive stats are close to worthless, and even detrimental in the face of the enrage timer.

Also, this thread here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/LOD-Vale-Guardian-Down/first#post5573311 claims to have cleared the boss with 9 zerkers and a celestial guardian, and the only reason the guardian was in celestial was to manipulate aggro AI; even saying that the guardian going in clerics was too much.

My entire point being that offensive stats are too good and defensive stats are worth barely anything in this content thus far.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I just wish I could tell what was going on. I watched a few of the videos, and it looks like the hardest part of this raid will be the gigantic flashing lights obstructing the view.

Look at any raid ever that you’re not familiar with, and you’ll be very hard pressed to understand what anything means or what’s going on. This isn’t a GW2 unique problem.

Familiar with any encounters in WoW Firelands? Tell me how intuitive this looks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JzGNfNlWlg

All that matters is that the raid itself knows what’s going on; raiding isn’t meant to be a spectator sport. My group fighting the vale guardian had no problem recognizing mechanics and AE during the fight.

lordkrall.7241:

Quite weird to say this in a thread where the group was NOT full zerk team.

You’re right, I misspoke. 9/10 full zerk teams. Full zerk is most likely doable, dropping that 1 tankier individual isn’t going to suddenly make that team fall apart.

Nokaru.7831:

Malthurius.6870:

Right now; full zerks can clear it, but a full group of zerk/tank hybrids most likely will have a lot of difficulty, and too many defensive stats make the fight impossible.

Malthurius.6870:

There are 2 threads on the forums right now that report their group being dominately zerker.

I’m glad you finally corrected yourself. We agree then, that nobody’s killed this in full berserker.

I said ‘can’ before, never claimed one had. So I haven’t changed my stance.

Nokaru.7831:

Malthurius.6870:

Right now; full zerks can clear it, but a full group of zerk/tank hybrids most likely will have a lot of difficulty, and too many defensive stats make the fight impossible.

No group has killed it with full berserker gear.

There are 2 threads on the forums right now that report their group being dominately zerker.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/WORLD-FIRST-VALE-GUARDIAN-KILL/first#post5573316
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/LOD-Vale-Guardian-Down/first#post5573244

They each have 1 slightly tankier character and 1 celestial respectively. That’s not good enough to say that full zerker can’t clear it.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Sooooo What… the raid fix nerf this guy into the ground? I’m going to be SERIOUSLY disappointed if that is the case…

The fight is definitely challenging; make no mistake about it. But the fact that the only clears I’ve seen were by full zerk team denotes a number tuning problem. More defensive groups aren’t able to do it as easily.

There is very little about the boss mechanically that I dislike. All the mechanics are very sound and work great together.

My only problem is the enrage timer and the tuning of the numbers. I’ve seen one group of players clear the boss with 4 condi zerker equivalents and 6 full zerkers; they were using very defensive skill sets and possibly defensive traits, so it’s a step in the right direction; but I feel like a full zerker team shouldn’t be able to clear the boss.

My group had 2-3 zerkers and a few tanky direct damagers, a few condition builds built to a vary degree of survivability, and a couple of support players. We got the boss to 50% before we had to stop because of people needing to sleep. Our damage wasn’t nearly high enough to beat the time, and I question if it’s even possibly with a more defensive group.

I think the numbers need to be tweaked in the direction of people built half defensive/ half offensive; that would mean increasing the enrage timer (or reducing the HP of the boss) and increasing the raid’s damage pressure to incentivise more defensive stats or more support roles in the raid. There is a very specific balance to strike here in between people dying to unavoidable damage (causing less DPS) and people staying alive but not doing enough damage.

Right now; full zerks can clear it, but a full group of zerk/tank hybrids most likely will have a lot of difficulty, and too many defensive stats make the fight impossible. That’s not a good thing if you’re trying to kill the zerk meta. But I think the timer needs to be there because it makes the raid balance damage and defensiveness; but right now you still have no need to balance defense and you get punished for doing so.

Dare I say; that the stat combo of power/precision/ferocity is too good? I refrained from mentioning it because it seems like an extreme solution to the problem; but perhaps a nerf to this stat combo would be a suitable solution to the problem. Mind you, not so that they’re garbage, but in line with other stat choices. The benefit you get from trading ferocity for a defensive stat isn’t worth it for example.

Two examples of a possible change: Maybe making ferocity the high stat on zerkers; or maybe turning the ferocity into vitality, making it into a stat set we don’t have already. I don’t think it’s much of a bad idea to make it so that if you wanted precision and ferocity with power you have to combine certain sets together… this has become a bit of a tangent; but this could be part of the perceived problem in addition to the numbers of the raid itself.

What they have to find is a balance where there isn’t so much unavoidable damage where you need a bunch of dedicated healers; but not too little where you can go into the instance dressed up like glass and survive just from your heal skills.

I think the ideal situation is where a comp of 3 clerics and 7 berserkers could be comparable to say 2 clerics and 8 zerker/knights/sentinel or 1 clearics 5 sentinels and 4 knights. See what I mean?

Nothing wrong with unavoidable damage if it means being more conscious about what role everyone is filling. Even then, everyone can just build themselves just a little bit more towards survivability and get by with minimal support roles. The unavoidable damage doesn’t make healing mandatory, but some form of group healing is very useful; even if the character isn’t built to heal.

Crystal Reid.2481:

This is really well constructed feedback, thanks for posting. I can tell you I’ll be changing their portraits to be Champions instead of Legendary to clear up some of the confusion over these guys being the boss, and looking into some of their numbers to make sure they feel sufficiently threatening without becoming a horrible slog.

Not only threatening; but their mechanics noticeable and important; you could perhaps shave off some health in favor of more damage pressure on the raid. I wouldn’t be against punishing groups that ignore their mechanics; doing the fight right should feel refreshing.

We had an abnormally tanky group with only 1 zerker warrior; and on one of our scientific pulls of the red guardian we just stacked on top of him to try and burst him and his seekers down. I don’t think being able to stack in all of those seekers was intended.

Once again, I applaud using trash as mechanic teachers; I hope this type of design continues throughout the rest of the raids.

bladex.9502:

We facerolled all 3 of them with 7 purely offensive geared elementalists, that kinda shows that they are brokenly easy.

Also for everyone making assumptions about the final boss, we got him to about 40% first time and then got oneshot by something and instantly booted.

So; you had enough time before being kicked to get 7 zerker ele’s, and with those zerker ele’s you also got the boss to 40%?

I’ll be honest; I do not believe that claim, I call BS; especially since you claimed there was a “lack of mechanics” in your OP, and ignoring the mechanics of the actual boss would get a bunch of glass ele’s killed; but you also claimed it forced you to run tanky and heal gear because of the constant ticking damage (Which was really low)? How could you possibly kill the boss with a full cast of tank ele’s and hope to kill the boss in 8 minutes when the furthest I’ve seen was wiping at 30~40% with less than 2 minutes left?

You should know better than to lie; your story isn’t adding up.

You should have at least noticed that the blue guardian was putting up a shield to gain immunity and the red guardian was immune to direct damage. You mean you got the boss to 40% but never made the connection that the boss had slightly altered mechanics of the trash mobs mechanics before it?

You’re lack of description also makes me suspicious of your 7 ele 40% burn; having done the content myself, noticed more mechanics than you appear to have, and have gotten much different opinions than yours (in more abundance), it all makes your claim feel false to me.

Evapor.6849:

-If raids are following this same line of unblockable, condi immune, physical immune trend then we NEED to have ways to save builds, having to change out entire traitlines, gear sigils and runes is so tedious

Unblockable is fine as long as it’s fairly weak (To keep constant pressure on the raid’s HP so sustaining yourself is always important) or completely avoidable by other means (The raid boss has an AE mechanic that does less damage when players stack inside of it, this is good design).

I don’t think there was any condi immunity; as for physical immunity; I’m pretty sure the red guardian was meant to be defeated in a different way than just throwing a torrent of conditions on top of him. These trash mobs are meant to teach mechanics, and burning him down with conditions takes way to long if you have to repeat it during the boss fight which has an 8 minute timer.

Don’t disagree that build saving would be nice though.

Evapor.6849:

-People already attempting to trio the raid, as someone that enjoys the 5 man dungeon format I’d prefer if the devs would stop pretending that we are going to see more build diversity because of the 10 man format when clearly this isn’t necessary, more people does not equal more engaging content, see any of the open world stuff. When ‘Challenging group content’ was announced I was seriously hoping for a dungeon revamp, new dungeons and a hardmode version of them, all in 5 man format.

The trash was not hard; but I can say with utter confidence that 3-manning the actual boss is impossible.

And of course more players doesn’t mean harder content; but the game has a problem of have a 5 player buff cap. Positioning isn’t a problem when you can buff everyone in the group in one spot. 10 players fixes this problem somewhat by at least forcing the larger group to split; and then the boss himself has mechanics which force players to spread out (Seekers, and melee displacement) and stack for specific mechanics (the earlier mentioned AE mechanic)

Evapor.6849:

-Gimmick mechanics like undodgeable are not challenging, the guy on the stream said specifically, “you won’t be able to dodge your way out of everything” why the hell is blocking treated any differentely both are active ways of mitigating damage it just so happens the block can scale with duration, traits and 2 guard can rotate 100% block uptime which is kittening stupid.

100% block up time? Are you sure about that? I’m sure a group that has more time in the raid today could attempt that if they felt like it, but I honestly don’t think that’s feasible at all.

Undodgable mechanics are great as long as they have alternative ways of avoiding or mitigating the damage; not everyone has access to block, but everyone has dodge; probably a large factor in that design choice for anything undodgable but blockable.

Evapor.6849:

-Unavoidable damage needs to go like maybe there’s a cult out there that specifically worships the agony mechanic if you can even call it that, unavoidable damage is something on this forum have been complaining about for ages and seeing it come back again on this very first raid is just hilarious to be honest it just proves no one reads this garbage forum.

The unavoidable damage mechanic seems to only be there to keep the raid pressured and mindful of it’s survivability; not to kill you like agony does if you lack the gear. As far as I can see, this mechanic is necessary. It keeps healing important throughout the entire fight and forces people to use their own healing if they feel threatened. This works with the AE mechanic I talked about earlier. You want to keep the groups HP high, against the ticking damage so that when it’s time to spread the damage around from the AE, you can take your shot. Otherwise, this mechanic would be non-threatening.

Evapor.6849:

What the hell does unavoidable damage even do for the game? The people I was talking to said to me they got to the endboss very shortly after release, these are people I consider to be the top players, they will always be the top players and giving fanservice to PHIW’s just because they don’t like buzzwords like zerk or meta is why I wonder who is raids being developed for?

Oh? You consider me a top player then? Flattering, but that trash wasn’t meant to be hard; I just got a group faster than everyone else that didn’t get as far as me before squads were yanked.

And for the record; berzerker stats are still usable; but there is theory crafting to be done with what could be considered the most efficient comp. Is it 3 support 1 control and 6 zerkers? Or maybe 2 support 1 control and 7 zerk/knight hybrids. We’ll be seeing people talk about what the most effective comp is soon; there is a balance to be struck. I do however think that going into the raid with nothing but zerkers will be either near impossible or impossible; probably not worth the trouble when you could trade 3 of those zerkers for support; have less of them go down and get an overall dps increase for the total raid.

Evapor.6849:

TLDR 10 man is a kittenty organization concept, The good players will always be good players no matter how much you nerf their metagame it will evolve. The same kittenty mechanics that people have been complaining about for years return once again in “Challening Group Content”

Yeah; the meta will have to find a different footing in these raids. There’s going to be a power balance of “How many damage builds can we bring while staying alive”.

From the sounds of it; you either just did the trash mobs, or you watched someone else clear the trash and formed this opinion without taking note of what those mobs were actually doing and the mechanics at work. Your opinion is a bit premature and everything you’ve criticized you criticized within a vacuum without considering how they effect each other.

For example “Unavoidable damage is bad because I think it’s bad” doesn’t even take the chance to think about how constant ticking damage like that effects other mechanics; you compare it to agony when agony is meant for checking gear while the damage here is for completely different purposes.

I’ll start off by saying, this is some of the best trash design that can be done. No one likes doing trash because it feels like a waste of time. It really serves no other purpose. What better thing to do with trash than to teach the players new mechanics quickly.

My group realized they were meant to teach and not to challenge pretty quickly. After defeating the blue guy and the green guy, the observant of our group picking out the mechanics of them, we spent the rest of our time pulling the red guy multiple times to try and figure out what his mechanic was, because we knew that knowledge would be useful for the actual boss.

We actually couldn’t quite nail down the red guy. We eventually just burnt him down with many dots (conditions), but since they were tutorial mobs, and the boss would have a timer, we knew that burning him down with conditions took too long for the method to work. We think the intended way is to destroy the seekers on top of him, but the seekers have a lot of health and despawn very quickly. The boss has the seekers in an altered form in phase 1.

The blue guy was simple; we had a chronomancer with sword, so stripping the shield kind of just happened. We also were able to stack on top of him, so none of us noticed how the AE attacks worked until the first attempt of the boss where the mechanic returns in an altered form in phase 1.

I’m still not sure what the mechanics of the green guy was. He has a displacement, but seems to have no other mechanic than that. The boss, of course, has this mechanic in an altered form as well in phase 1.

Perhaps this trash should be a bit more difficult so players don’t zerg through them and disregard their mechanics. If they are there to teach the raid the mechanics, they shouldn’t be ignorable, and to a certain degree, they were.

We were kicked from the instance like everyone else; but 8 of us were able to re-enter and try again. I wasn’t lucky enough to get back in, but we walked away pretty satisfied with the apparent difficulty of the actual boss. We didn’t really even put a dent, but we were 8 manning the boss, so perhaps it’s difficult to judge properly.

Don’t know why people insist on calling the red blue and green mobs bosses… even mini-bosses for that matter.

They are tutorial trash. Probably some of the best designed trash for a raid I’ve seen. They’re not there to waste your time, they’re there to teach you how the actual boss mechanics work in a more relaxed environment. Great design; however the red guy was questionable; you either need condition damage to kill him; or, the more likely case, is that you’re suppose to destroy the seekers on top of him to damage him, but the seekers are really difficult to kill before the despawn.

The actual boss has multiple phases, and the 2nd phase you fight all 3 of those guys again, but with a timer and most likely other mechanics happening. Grinding down the red guy with conditions won’t work in that case, so there must be a better strategy.

The only big criticism I have is that the red guy has unclear mechanics. None of them were hard, but like I said, I don’t believe they were meant to be; they are tutorials for the actual boss.

3rd Scenario – Every profession can already do some form of support, control, and damage, and even druid still has damage and control options. So people will play what they want to play, but a more balanced team will have a much easier time than a team made of glass.

There is no such thing as a dedicated healer in this game; even a druid will be expected to put out damage and do some control in addition to support. If healing becomes truly important, then we have nearly every other profession that can provide some form of group healing as well to varying degrees of effectiveness.

I think the problem is that regen stacking would run away way too fast. It might be fine if 1 stack was 1/5 as effective as it is now, so 25 stacks would be as if 5 regens were on you.

As a Guardian main since launch… I know the pain of getting your melee attack reflected because it has melee range projectiles… it’s dumb. What’s worse is that it makes the attack repeat because it didn’t actually connect, and it just gets reflected again. It’s counter intuitive as well.

At least create some kind of flag that makes those projectiles non-reflectable.

But I think the elite spec mechanic is fine; it’s unique in that it can be used while attuned to any legend; it’s a 4th utility. I’d argue that Engineer got the shortest end of the stick in this regard, but toolbelt skills were already really flexible.

It’s also on a few skills… like this one: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forced_Engagement

It’s a rare effect, and rightfully so… it’s a pretty powerful mechanic.

The game has always had a trinity of damage, control, and support; the problem was that they were all so homogenized that no specialization or thought was required other than: “Build for damage, stack to control, and blast finish to support”. The trinity happened incidentally instead of having any thought… this was bad.

Hopefully with the combination of smarter AI that won’t stack and damage that demands active survivability through support, people will gravitate towards more defensive stats like Knights, Valkyrie, Celestial, Soldiers, Cleric, ect.

I think people are also confusing healer focused for healer. Druid is not a dedicated healer; just a very strong healer. Druid still has the means to control and deal damage, fulfilling the soft trinity as it should have been since the games launch.

This also doesn’t mean that they will be required, but their presence will make surviving easier… as it should be. Everyone no matter their build has access to support, control, and damage, so everyone is still self sufficient. It logically follows that if you go into a dungeon built like glass, you should die pretty easily; a player built to support and one to control should make things easier, but not feel like a requirement; since even a player built like glass can still fill a support role, but worse than someone built for it.

What if you made it so that if you’re in Mallyx you can’t get your conditions cleansed by players? Conditions would still fall off, but they just can’t be removed. That way you can keep the same kind of gameplay without worrying about other players breaking your condition ramp up.

In addition to that idea, maybe make it so that conditions can’t fall off of you at all while in mallyx, and they just sit at 0.1 seconds until you switch over. Maybe then condition cleanse just sets the conditions to 0.1 seconds remaining, and drop off immediately when you switch off of mallyx. Supporting the condition ramp up and high risk high reward type of style.

Just an idea.

I really appreciate the flavor that racial skills give. I wouldn’t really care if they were woefully underpowered for the revenant. I just want that racial flavor there for my character to tap into.

I actually really like the idea of this limitation allowing for future elite specs to change pre-existing weapon skill sets into different ones to suit a different role the more I think about it. That idea alone is enough for me to concede; in addition to the obvious balance issues that I said I was aware of in the OP.

Perhaps there could be a middle ground, where they add new weapons to the class core without an elite spec; and if the elite specs can change pre-existing weapon skills, then it wouldn’t step on the elite spec’s toes.

The idea of different skills for the same weapon for future elite specs is an interesting prospect that hadn’t crossed my mind. I’d be all for that if that’s indeed in the cards.

The balance argument is a good point, but I don’t believe it to be a point that can stand on it’s own. The 1 elite spec per build format already prevents future elite specs from compounding on each other since a lot of the strength of the spec is based on how it synergizes with either the weapon skills, utilities, or profession mechanic itself; so that already can’t be mixed and would prevent them from being overpowered if used outside of the elite specs. In this respect, they would only have to be sure that they were not overpowered outside of their elite specs; if they’re underpowered when used outside of the elite spec, then so be it; this wouldn’t damage the spec when some of it’s parts are used together.

Elite specs still being impactful if they only grant what’s in their trait lines is a debatable point, but I can understand it. Having the skills attached to the spec does make them feel a lot more important; but is that feeling of importance worth the limitation?

Linken.6345:

So you rather have them scrap the system then when they run into the wall they know is there and cant balance it we dont get any more elite specializations.
Yea that sound way better mate.

Where did I say scrap the system? Removing a limitation isn’t scraping the elite specialization system.

As the elite specializations are designed now, they already support the utilities and weapon skills they grant; players will naturally gravitate towards using those utilities and weapons with said elite spec. The limitation of 1 elite spec line per build will naturally prevent someone from combining 2 elite specs already, and I doubt there would be anything completely broken from using a utility skill or weapon from 1 elite spec on another if you can’t take any traits supporting those choices anyway.

I have but 1 criticism of the introduction of the elite specializations. I do not like the fact that the new weapons and utilities are chained to whether or not you’re using the elite specialization or not. You could still use the elite specialization as the vehicle to unlock these things, just don’t make using the elite spec a prerequisite to using the weapons and utilities. The elite specialization lines change enough on their own to still feel unique gameplay wise.

I can understand the reasoning; this creates an easier system to balance in the future when more elite specializations are introduced and more weapons and utilities get thrown on the pile. That’s all well and good, but this will end up feeling like a very large limitation to the common player when they aren’t allowed to use weapon A and utility skill B with Elite Spec C.

It’s a preemptive strike against future balance issues that don’t exist as of right now at the potential cost of build diversity and creativity in the future. Anyone else think this shouldn’t be the case?

I don’t know how anyone feels like Trehearne stole their glory. He credits a lot of success to you, and by the end he gives you command over the pact to take down Zhaitan. In the personal story, your player character is the hero that defeats Zhaitan with the help of Destiny’s Edge.

Trehearne is probably the best written character in the original personal story. He actually has a story arc and some kind of development that is very apparent to anyone paying attention. Anyone who played a Sylvari probably knows this better than anybody else as he appears in their story before any other race’s story.

Mind you, all of the characters are written poorly in the personal story. The personal story suffered from lack of character development; it was detached throughout, and Trehearne was so “good” because he was present through most of it, especially if you were a Sylvari.

I remember during the beta when I played a Sylvari and chose the “Green Knight” story path, I was so intrigued by having a rival in the Green Knight. I thought the Green Knight was going to be reoccurring for me. How cool would have that been? A rival that was unique to my choice that would appear throughout the story… nope… just a throwaway arc.

Destiny’s Edge 2.0 is pretty well developed now though when compared to Trehearne.

TL;DR: Trehearne may be hated, but he is the most developed character in the personal story by a large margin, and that makes him the best character in my opinion. In fact, if he wasn’t so developed people wouldn’t have this strong opinion about him.

Test.8734:

ODB.6891:

So I’m re-reading what I wrote and somehow I fail to see where I said I think that the Revenant should have anything superior to anything in any mode.

Zerk = superior to all other stats in PvE.

ODB.6891:

Strangely enough, I’m also failing to see where I said anything about PvE or what anyone chooses to use in any game mode.

Zerk = superior to all other stats in PvE.

ODB.6891:

So I’m re-reading what I wrote and somehow I fail

Indeed.

So, you don’t think Revenant should have a direct damage option… or in other words, be underpowered in PvE.

I may be an optimist about this, but I think applying the current PvE meta to HoT meta is flawed thinking.

Beast Sos.1457:

Test.8734:

Beast Sos.1457:

That boss fight!

…Looks rather bad. “Avoid the red circles” plus the obligatory CC attack that ArenaNet is obsessed in using over and over again. The only difference is the lack of a wall, so people won’t be able to dodge against something.

What would you recommend to make content challenging then? I’m sure there is more to this fight than we seen.

There probably is a lot more to the fight; considering they made a deal over not targeting the wyvern.

On another note; when they were talking about the stability changes they mention it “coming sooner than you might think”. I don’t how anyone else reads into that, but I read a potential feature pack.

Donari.5237:

That shot shows something else interesting: Just one underwater weapon.

This isn’t surprising considering Revenants can’t weapon swap. Engineers and Elementalists are the same in this regard.

Beast Sos.1457:

Malthurius.6870:

One of those examples of something that could be impossible to complete without a specific mastery… I like it actually.

I dont like the idea of having to use a Glider in the fight. It does seem like you will need a Gilder to get to the boss though. Masteries should be more convenient for combat but not mandatory, imo.

Personally; I don’t like the fact that you need a glider to even attempt. His knockback seemed avoidable, and if you’re willing to put up with the extra challenge, you should be able to attempt the fight without the glider mastery.

Then I could call it horizontal progression, as it does make things easier but in a mechanical way; not a powercreep way. But mandatory horizontal progression is basically just content gating.

One of those examples of something that could be impossible to complete without a specific mastery… I like it actually.

Nephziel.6053:

I really hope they do not use GS…
Promote some new weapons.

Also there is atleast 4 same post within a week asking if Rev gets GS, checking before posting always helps…

This post was made first… 24 days ago.

Invictus.1503:

I think you are right, you’re jumping the gun. They will almost surely have MH sword which will likely be a melee power type of weapon (maybe a mix of power and condi).

As for a TH weapon, I agree with a lot of people and hope they do NOT give greatsword. However, I completely believe they will give a staff as a melee weapon. In the original trailer, they showed it. Many thought it a spear (but Anet said this wasn’t so) and then people thought it was hammer, but they just showed the hammer and it is a 1,200 range weapon with no animation that matches the trailer. At this point it is hard to say it isn’t a staff.

I for one, am very psyched about this!

I just can’t buy a melee staff; only because it would seem exceptionally lazy on their part. There are a lot of staff skins that make no sense for melee combat; however they have an entire catalog of spear skins in the game that would make much more sense for a polearm (spears would become amphibious weapons). In either case they would have to make new animations for both; so why not use the weapon models built for that kind of thing besides the fact making spears both water and land weapons would give people what they want: effectively a new weapon type.

The weapon we saw Rytlock use was probably a NPC only weapon; like whips, rapiers, and shoulder cannons. NPCs don’t adhere to our rules when it comes to weapons. Rytlock could literally be swinging around an Asura and it would mean just as much.

Personally, I want Greatsword; the reason why Greatsword is so popular is because they have possibly the most visceral skills in the game, and that’s really fun. I’m sure the new tech they have will make a lot of their weapons feel very visceral; just 1-handed sword would be good enough for me, especially if it’s a decent melee direct damage option.

Revenants will more than likely have a direct damage legend and weapons to go along with it. They really showcased the 2 legends and 2 weapon sets that really go together from my point of view.

It helps that they showed things that they haven’t discussed in blogs yet. When there is actually new information and not just retreading, it tends to be a lot more interesting.

I hope the expansion does something to break the berserker meta… so…

Perhaps a combination of Rampagers/Soldiers/Knights.

sorudo.9054:

new meta?
you mean new joke, it has all the bad sides and none of the good sides.

energy – same as initiative which i can’t stand.
no weapon swap – worse then engineer and they have kits to lower the problem.
linked utility skills – as if we don’t have enough limits.

take that and add the problem that their health bar is med, it’s gonna be a fun ride seeing ppl getting so exited for this profession and ending up dying more often then they like to.
at least remove the energy dependent part and the blow isn’t that hard, for now it’s allot worse then the thief and that profession is broken beyond believe.

Good; I hope a lot of people suck at the profession like people did at elementalist at the launch of the game. It’ll keep the Revenant population nice and low.

Yeah; I suppose… even though I think from the blog post it’s pretty clear that it isn’t introducing aggro to the game; people just read “taunt” and freak out.

I don’t believe that the Revenant will be over saturated. I think we’ll see a ton of people roll one when the expansion launches; and everyone will probably have a Revenant, but I honestly can’t see a lot of people maining Revenant.

The Revenant seems like a really busy profession mechanic wise, and I don’t want to say it’s a trend… but the busier the profession mechanic, the less popular the profession tends to be overall. Warrior being the simplest and most popular and Mesmer being the most “complex” and least popular.

I know this is really a unsubstantiated line of reasoning; but I think the combination of upkeep, resource management, lack of weapon swap, and the potential depth of legend swapping will make most players stay away and prefer simpler professions. I don’t think Revenent will become the most popular profession… not over warrior at least, not even close probably.

Hm… I actually agree… however it’s completely arbitrary.

Test.8734:

Truth be said, this kind of feature was far more useful in GW1 than in GW2.

In the original Guild Wars, gear did little to define your stats. In GW2, in other hand, most of your stats and half your skills are defined by gear. So being able to change your trait points and skills around wouldn’t make as much difference as changing your equipment around.

A PvP build saver could recall everything about the build; from the weapons, to the amulet, to the traits, to the sigils and runes, and utilities. It would be very convenient to have this; especially with Stronghold coming down the pipe where players will want different builds for that and conquest.

In PvE, it would just allow players to have more than one build without having to either write down, create a link to the build on a site, or remember their builds. Even if it can’t change your armor and weapons, changing your traits alone would just be convenient.

They should add it to the game, even if it was only for PvP… but the system would give enough convenience to PvE players that if they did add it, I don’t see why it shouldn’t work in PvE too.

CureForLiving.5360:

Larynx.2453:

butch.8136:

Anet is working on it. We can only wait.

For 2+ years…

So what’s a few more months / years?

Might as well hold on to the hope it’ll be in GW3 then.

I don’t understand what you mean. The living world was the continuation of the personal story; and I bet if anything the expansion will lead off where the living world ended. Whether it will be in the form of more living story style content; or a return to the personal story system is yet to be seen.

Limitations breed innovations… the bar will force you to be more creative with how you use the ability, and that idea is much more fun than gliding wherever you want without threat.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

I don’t want to kill the brainstorming….. but, there are no new weapon types being added in Heart of Thorns. Though, specializations will allow professions to use existing weapon types which they currently cannot use.

I will be pretty upset if you guys use caster staves for the melee polearm niche when you have a whole catalog of spear skins to use instead.

Ever since they removed permanence from your traits they’ve had no excuse not to add this feature; and we know specializations won’t have any permanence either… so what’s the hold up?

Yeah… this isn’t a good idea.

If it’s because they fear it’ll split the community; then that should speak volumes to them that one of their game modes are lacking. If everyone plays Stronghold still after 3 months, then they need to improve conquest. If people leave stronghold to rot, they need to improve stronghold.

Forcing players to play whatever mode is given to them isn’t only bad from a player’s perspective; but from a developer perspective it skews their data in a way where they can’t tell which mode players actually prefer.

I basically agree with everything you say here… +1

I think it’s confirmed that precursor crafting is linked to masteries, no? It probably will require crafting… I mean as you said legendaries required crafting anyway, but what you gain through masteries and what you have to do with those masteries could be anything as far as we know.

Coldtart.4785:

PvE cannot provide a skill based way to do anything, ever. Even in ‘challenging’ PvE you’re still just grinding, not for RNG drops but for tidbits of mechanical knowledge that act as the ‘ingredients’ in the ‘recipe’ for a method to clear the content. Since AI can’t think, the only way to make these tidbits not immediately obvious is to make them based on trial and error.

If you want some ego stroking thing to swing around, you already missed the WTS qualifiers.

This isn’t true. You can easily create challenging PvE content based around skill, all it requires is more reactive AI… which can be doable in solo instances. Every profession has the ability to dodge, an encounter that requires you to use your dodge or die on nearly every attack could actually be challenging.

There is also PvE content that doesn’t even revolve around combat… content like SAB Tribulation mode are legitimately difficult platforming challenges even when you understand where all the traps are.

Yeah, AI can’t think… but it can still counter a player if it’s programmed to do so.

Then you could create alternate requirements to a battle:
Don’t get hit by X attack ever.
Don’t use your heal skill.
Don’t use your elite skill.
Defeat the enemy in 3 minutes.
Don’t kill any adds.

Hate to bring up the comparison, but even with the most coordinated guilds in World of Warcraft, end game bosses were still difficult to execute; and that’s what GW2 needs; mechanics that are difficult to execute even when you know exactly what to do, and it’s completely doable.

Gnat.9405:

Please inform us where you have gotten all of this information about how to obtain precursors, because clearly you know something that no one else does.

Seriously, these threads are as bad as the ones talking about how OP the revenant is.

Well, assuming that legendaries will be easier to get is flawed… but for the most part this has turned into an argument over skill vs time when it comes to getting a legendary.

There are really no glaring bugs in the game; any bugs I can think of are pretty minor or small mistakes.

The most annoying things in the game are profession skill anomalies… like Guardian’s Sword Wave being projectiles… still irked by that fact.